


Cat's Blessing

by HappyLeech



Series: Gifted Lives [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Cats, Gen, Temporary and non specific character death, edited and updated, magic gifts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 05:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15135824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: Agent Washington shouldn't have lived past the age of ten. A passerby with slitted eyes decides that's not to be.Washington + Cats





	Cat's Blessing

When he was ten, when he was still  _ David,  _ not Agent or Washington or Prisoner 619-B or Wash, he got caught outside in a storm. 

Loki had bolted outside, spooked by something in the house, and as the rain began to pour little David ran out after him. His mother stood on the porch, calling for him to come inside and sit with the twins before he caught his death or worse, but he ignored her as he moved further away into the fields surrounding their house. Loki wasn’t in the house or either of the barns, so he _ had _ to be in the fields.

“Loki! Where are you!?” he yelled, ignoring the booming thunder as he stooped down to see if Loki had taken shelter in the canola or under a tractor or gone hiding in a gopher hole. Drenched and waterlogged, frustrated and worried, David stood up, opening his mouth to call for Loki again and—

He heard a pop and a crackle, and then he didn’t hear much of anything at all.

+

David opened his eyes slowly. Everything ached, like when he fell out of the hayloft the year before, and he felt like one of the cow’s was laying it’s head on his chest. Instead of seeing the roof of the barn overhead or Killian the cow, he saw his mother crying into his shoulder. 

Jillian and Abby were beside her, eyes red and faces pale, and once they realized he was awake, yelled for their father..

“…mom?” he croaked, feeling sore and wrung out, slurring his words. “Whatsa go’n on?” He wanted to ask about Loki, but it was hard to form the words. 

“You scared me and your mother half to death, David!” his father snapped, running into the room with the phone at his ear. “We’re waiting on the ambulance, do you remember what happened?”

David shook his head carefully. He had  _ no _ idea what happened.

On the way to the hospital he listened as his mother talked, about seeing him standing in the field, the blinding flash of light, and then nothing but smoke and fire as she screamed for help.

“You were face down on the ground,” his father said, as they waited for the doctor, holding his hand close. “You- your shirt was smoking and the grass around you was on fire. You weren’t breathing, David.”

“’m sorry,” he replied, not even sure why he was apologizing.

He went back to school two weeks later with a scar down his back, a new story to tell, and a pair of feline eyes keeping watch from the shadows.

* * *

 

Loki never returned after David’s encounter with the lightning, his parents quietly telling him that Loki may have been killed by the strike, but not long after he discovered a handful of kittens in one of the barns. The barn kittens were rougher than Loki, not inclined to keep their claws to themselves and banished from the house for their destructive power, but he loved them all the same. While they would hiss and bite his father and sisters if approached, they were outright affectionate with David, crowding around him as he went about his chores.

Being that David was the only person on the farm that they liked, he was chosen when one of them showed signs of being pregnant to take her into town and get her checked out by the vet, as well as make appointments to have the others fixed.

So that was why, on a slightly blustery spring day, he found himself on his back in the middle of the road. He blinked once, twice, then began to pull himself up into a sitting position, a thin white sheet sliding down into his lap. Debris littered the ground around him, noise and yelling echoing in his ears as he raised a hand to his head.

A shout of alarm drew his attention, and he turned to look at one of the EMT’s. They were staring at him, hand to their mouth, before a flurry of other emergency personnel flocked to his side. Someone gently put their hands on his shoulder, lowering him back down onto the ground as someone else kneeled by his side, hands on his arm, searching for a pulse.

“What’s your name, son?” one of them asked, and David squinted, trying to focus on them before giving up.

“David…” he replied, closing his eyes. Something about the sun and the people moving around him was making his head spin and stomach churn. “What...what happened?”

Something snapped around his neck. “You were in an accident. Someone hit you, and your truck rolled,” one of the EMT’s said. “We’re going to move you now, okay? Do you have family for us to call?”

As he was transported to the ambulance, David opened his eyes again, looking at what remained of the small truck he used for errands. It lay in pieces and he knew that Sunny, a cat whose disposition was anything but, hadn’t survived the crash.

Somehow, that hurt him more than the fractured ribs and broken arm and his family worrying at his bedside.

* * *

 

By the time David became Agent Washington, he’d been in enough car accidents and farm mishaps that joining the military almost seemed like the  _ safer  _ option for him in the long run. Sitting up in bed in the infirmary on the Mother of Invention with a black eye and a new set of surgical scars down his side  _ almost _ made him revise that opinion.

“I didn’t know we were allowed pets on board,” Wash said offhandedly to the Counselor once he’d finished another check-up, thinking of the tortoiseshell who had watched as he was moved into the room after his surgery and the tabby who would come and visit each morning before the nurses did. “Do you know who brought the cats in?”

The Counselor tilted his head, giving him an appraising look that made Wash regret mentioning anything at all. “There are no cats on board, Agent Washington. No animals at all, in fact. How long have you been seeing these...cats? Have you mentioned them to your nurse yet?” he asked, and Wash tried to hold back a frown. When Connie had visited him, she had been holding a Russian Blue that had been very interested in crawling onto his lap, and he was sure that Florida was carrying around a Maine Coon on his shoulders the last time he’d seen him. Not to mention the three or four that hung out in the canteen.

Wash _ knew  _ he wasn’t hallucinating cats, but he had no idea why the Counselor wanted him to think that he was.

“Well…” he said instead of arguing. “Ever since York got Delta, he’s been messing around and pranking people, so it could be holograms I’m seeing. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“That is a possibility. I’ll talk to your nurse anyways. Just to cover all of our bases.”

+

Months later as Wash lay trapped under the rubble in the MoI infirmary, dazed and confused and searching for a voice no longer in his head, the cats came to him. The Russian Blue, the Maine Coon, the six other cats who roamed the ship crowded around him, their cries drowning out the blaring alarms and the static in his head.

He didn’t remember much of what happened afterwards, but a faint memory of the Counselor telling the crew to “ _ get those cats out of here and away from him _ ,” stuck with Wash for years.

* * *

 

After the MoI crashed, after being hospitalized, after recovery, and after his first encounter with the Reds and Blues, Wash had four cats traveling with him. Upon entering jail, the number had dwindled to two, and when he agreed to Hargrove’s offer, the get-out-of-jail-free card in exchange for Epsilon, he was left with one. A ratty-eared mix that yowled in his ear all the time and hated the Meta with a passion, not that Wash blamed it.

It wasn’t Maine anymore, wasn’t some amalgamation of Sigma and the other AI. It was just a puppet in armour with muscle memory to help it along.

The loss of the other cats didn’t bother him, though. He didn’t have the time and money to look after a handful of cats, but he did admit privately that it was strange to be without them underfoot. 

The cat sat on his shoulder on the way to the sim troopers new bases, and for a moment he felt like his old self.

+

The robot and soldier in pink both collapse on the ground, and Wash ignored Simmons screaming to focus on the fact that the cat on his shoulders had finally decided he’d had enough of him. It hopped down to the ground beside the robot and snuffed at him before turning away and disappearing into the underbrush.

Something about the exchange made Wash shudder, like it was more than just two bodies on the ground and an injured shoulder from the one still alive. Like it was more than a simple cat running from his acts of violence.

Something about being without a cat made him uncomfortable, but he pushed the feeling away and turned back to Simmons who had his head in his hands. 

“There, now you can call for a medic.”

+

Getting hit with the warthog did Wash less favours than the last times it had happened. Not only had his ribs cracked, but they’d punctured one of his lungs. He’d also fractured his left wrist and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a minor concussion as well. 

Still, he wasn’t about to ask the medic he and the Meta’d taken hostage to look at his injuries- Wash could take care of himself.

Of course, that had to wait until after they’d got Doc to tell them where the Reds and Blue had gone to, got Doc out of the wall, and, when that failed, got the wall out of the base. Then they had to get the wall-with-Doc out of the area, then find a place to camp for the night before going after the others where no one would ask questions about the medic stuck in a piece of wall—

In summary, it had taken hours before Wash had the chance to leave Doc under the Meta’s watch so he could go lick his wounds in private and see what could be done about the lung puncture that had his HUD screaming at him.

So why he found himself stripped out of his armour and wading into a stream to rescue a kitten he did not know. The cat was soaking wet and clinging to a piece of driftwood, whining pitifully, and it latched onto Wash’s broken wrist like it was a lifesaver when he reached it.

Wash stood there in the growing dark, wet up to his knees, a sopping wet kitten with needle-sharp claws digging into his arm, and the sharp pain of his perforated lung echoing through his body.

“I’d best not get sick because of you,” he finally said, gently pulling the kitten off his arm and placing it into his lap as he began to treat his injuries the best that he could. He braced his wrist and wiped the blood from his mouth, washed his face and cleaned off his scrapes and the punctures from the kitten’s claws before heading back to their camp.

“You look terrible,” Doc said from his place in the wall, and Wash shot him a glare. “Seriously! I don’t think you’re supposed to be that pale…what did you say happened between you and Sarge?”

“Nothing,” he snapped, putting the kitten on the ground in front of the fire he’d built earlier and carefully sitting. Doc made a disbelieving noise, but Wash ignored him. He poked at his MRE for a while before admitting defeat on the food front, putting the rest of it on the ground for the cat to eat. As the kitten dug in, he snapped his helmet back on.

“Wake me up in five,” he said, and the Meta grunted.

+

When he woke next it was morning, his helmet helpfully informed him that he’d been asleep for seven hours, dead for just under twelve minutes, and his chest no longer hurt. He sat up, wrenching off his helmet before turning to the Meta. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Uh…he did try.” Wash turned to Doc, pebbles falling from the hunk of wall as he tried to shrug. “But I’m pretty sure you were dead for a while there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, according to my readings, you’d stopped breathing? And I don’t know about you Freelancers, but when that happens it’s usually not good for your health.”

Wash glared. “Your readings were wrong, I’m fine.” He turned to the Meta as he put his helmet back on. “Come on- I want to be finished with this nonsense sooner rather than later.” Bending, he scooped up the kitten and set it on his shoulder, taking comfort in the purring that reverberated through his skull.

+

In the last twenty minutes Wash had been lured to a trap, blown up, tossed around by Texas (who should be _ dead _ ), and nearly fallen off an ice shelf. Then the Meta took out Texas and he had an entire new problem to deal with.

As he fell back in the snow, the Meta tossing him away and across the snow, five things ran through his clouded, bloodied head, cycling and repeating until they intermingled in a nauseating swirl.

Alison. The Reds and Blues. The Meta. Epsilon. The kitten he left with Doc.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

 

Wash found himself clinging to a door jamb, watching at the crew members aboard the Hand of Merope ran to and fro as the ship began to shudder. He’d tripped over a chord as he followed a particularly vocal tomcat from one end of the ship to another, pulling out a plug and, apparently, dooming the entire ship to a fiery death via crashing spaceship. The cat in question had tried to dig his claws into the floor and then Wash’s leg before he’d scooped him up under one arm to keep him from going tumbling away as the ship swayed.

“What was that powering?” he shouted to a passing crew member as everything began to tilt, Carolina and Tucker both trying to get his attention through his radio. Then the ship rolled, and Wash rolled with it. Curling around the cat, he rammed hard into a wall before something heavy crashed down on his head and he went under.

There was no way for him to determine how much time had passed before he woke, the sounds of things falling and people shouting drawing Wash up from unconsciousness. His helmet wasn’t responding, screens dark, and he was pinned under several pieces of machinery, so he closed his eyes and hoped for rescue.

Eventually he began to hear the faint sounds of Carolina and Caboose, Caboose cheering her on as they moved bits and pieces of debris out of their way. A thin ray of light cast itself across his face as something was moved, and the cat, still in his arms, began to yowl.

“Wash!” 

Carolina.

He could hear more of the rubble moving and shifting around him, and the cat slipped from his grasp to explore the small pocket they were trapped in.

“There’s a cat- he has to be around here somewhere.” 

Epsilon.

He shifted his legs, and the cat meowed as the movement widened the hole the light was coming from, large enough for it to slip through to freedom.

“I see him!” 

Simmons.

After that, it didn’t take long then for them to clear enough rubble away for Caboose and Simmons to pull him from the wreckage, and even less time for the pocket Wash had been curled up in to collapse in on itself.

Later, before Carolina and Epsilon snuck away in the night but after their injuries have mostly been treated, Grif asked how on earth he managed to survive the crash with a computer console on his head. Curled up with his cat, and three others, Wash only shrugged.

* * *

 

Emily smoothed out the thin blanket covering Wash, then turned to face the window and made a tisking noise.

“He’s fine, you know. Didn’t even code when he was on my table,” she said, pulling open the curtains and letting the sunlight in. “You can’t come in though, it’s not sanitary. You’ll have to keep watch from out there.”

Dozens of pairs of eyes blinked up at her from the roof a floor below, and in unison the cats meowed before slinking off. One remained, and she watched as it clambered it’s way up the wall until it was sitting outside the window, claws sheathed but still pawing at the glass.

“No! No ifs, ands, or buts—there is a no-cat policy on this unit, or in my hospital,” Emily scolded. “You can stay on the sill until I move him to a less critical unit, then I might bend the rules and let a few of you in. Depending on how well behaved you are.”

The cat on the other side of the glass blinked slowly at her, then yawned and curled up in a ball.

“I’m glad we agree. I’ll make sure that you have food and water out there, don’t you worry.” Emily left the curtains open as she left, humming happily to herself.

With his cats watching over him, he’d be just fine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE GIANT SHOUT OUT TO [ NILE](http://onthenilerivah.tumblr.com/) / [ BOXONTHENILE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile/) FOR THE SUPPORT without her I'd still be in the 'too shy/nervous to write for this fandom' stage of things <3
> 
> * * *
> 
> * I mentioned to Nile that I hadn't seen anything about Wash literally having 9 lives like a cat and then it turned into this haha  
> * Walsh's gift is called the Cat's Blessing. This means that if he dies, he gains a new life from one of the cats that follows him.  
> * Wash doesn't know about his Gift but he knows something is up  
> * I planned on just a one-shot but I have at least 2 other stories planned and Nile wrote something for the Grifs sO  
> * This fic is part of a (now) large universe so check out the [ Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1euGnfyh6O01P5u5dVyJbNr9yMSwVHwtQ0ay7WU9AJ7A/edit?usp=sharing/) for the worldbuilding and for an idea of future fics.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Red vs Blue Tumblr](https://textsfromchorus.tumblr.com/)


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